


Deconstructing Walls

by MissAnnThropic



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s01e04 Emancipation, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-09-25 20:56:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9843911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAnnThropic/pseuds/MissAnnThropic
Summary: Set after "Emancipation", Sam Carter is still trying to figure out her new CO.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> General Warning: I will not tag to your satisfaction. I think tagging is out of control, and I will not tag a fic to the point of spoiling what happens in a fic. I’m an old-school reader who believes the story should be able to surprise you. If that’s a deal-breaker for you, turn back now.
> 
> Cross-posting: I do not consent to have my fics posted to other websites (such a Goodreads).

“I think I’m in trouble, Resa.”

Samantha Carter stood at the window of her new home in Colorado Springs – a rental full of potential to be cute, but not with half her belongings still in boxes – and watched the snow coming down outside as she held the phone to her ear.

“What happened?” the woman on the other end of the line asked. Major Teresa Wright, a member of the Stargate team at the Pentagon, had worked with Sam creating the dialing program that sent the heroic team on the first Abydos mission. The heroic, brave, first team made up entirely of _men_. Sam and Teresa shared a love of science, high-level clearance, and internal reproductive tracts. That alone was enough to cement a quasi-friendship of sorts between them… just what Sam Carter needed after being re-assed to a new city where she knew no one.

“Colonel O’Neill has asked me to come to his house for a ‘talk’. I’m supposed to be there in about an hour.”

“And you’re sure that’s a bad thing?”

“Well, I don’t see how it can be _good_.” Sam ran a hand through her hair, biting back a hiss when her sleeve rubbed against the still-raw rope burns on her wrists. “He’s going to give me a dressing down for my performance on the team so far, I know it. I can’t imagine why else he would want to see me. Doing it outside the mountain is probably his way of trying to be nice about it, but it’s a first warning for sure.” It felt like being called to the principal’s office, only worse. _So much worse_.

“You’ve only been on the team for three missions,” Teresa pointed out, “amounting to a whole two weeks. What could _you_ have possibly done in such a short amount of time to piss him off enough to call you on the carpet?”

Sam huffed. “Trust me, that’s enough time to be seen as a complete screw-up in Colonel O’Neill’s eyes.” Just saying it made Sam relive the greatest hits of Sam Carter missteps on SG-1 thus far and cringe.

“Yes,” Teresa grumbled lowly, “I’ve heard he’s a hard-ass.”

“His reputation is not entirely unfounded,” Sam conceded.

“Figures you finally get the assignment of your dreams and the CO ends up being a total dick.”

“I wouldn’t call him _that_ ,” Sam quickly amended, as much the knee-jerk reaction of a good little soldier as it was honesty. “He’s not an _ass_. Well, not a _complete_ ass. He’s just… intimidating.”

“I’ll bet!” Teresa exclaimed. “I’ve read that man’s file. What of it that wasn’t classified, anyway. Some scary stuff.”

Sam hummed noncommittally.

“That kind of person doesn’t usually ruffle your feathers, though, Sam.”

“It’s not his record that’s intimidating. I’ve handled my fair share of officers with backgrounds that would give most people nightmares. It’s not even that he’s stone-cold terrifying, because I wouldn’t say he _is_ , but there’s something about him that’s just… hell, I don’t know. He’s hard to approach.” Sam frowned. “And he resents having a woman on his team.”

“Oh god, one of _those_.”

Sam tried to deny it was despair she was feeling, but in the solitude of her new house it was hard to fend off. “He claims otherwise, but he and I had a _really_ awful pissing contest within the first ten minutes of meeting each other about how he didn’t want a woman on his team.” Schrödinger jumped on top of the box beside her, demanding attention, and she pet him idly. “He’s clearly been looking for a reason to kick me off the team.”

“He’d have to find a damn good reason first.”

“Trust me, he’s got plenty.” Sam winced. First failing to save the kidnapped Abydonians, then getting drunk on local juice and taking off her top, _then_ being kidnapped out of a Mongol’s tent… “These first three missions have not been stellar moments in my career, Resa.”

“Come on, it can’t have been that bad.”

Sam turned her back to the window and sat on the sill, the cold panes a frigid swath along her body. “The first mission I couldn’t do anything to save that kid he obviously cared about, the second was a complete boondoggle that I may _never_ live down, and this last one…” She stopped, frustrated that she couldn’t go into detail over the phone about the mission, despite Teresa’s equal clearance. Unsecure lines and all that. “Well, let’s just say that my being a woman was definitely a problem.” The Shavadaii and Turghan weren’t her _fault_ , but there would not have been so much trouble if SG-1 had been an all-male team.

It all culminated in Colonel O’Neill having more than enough ammunition to take her off the team.

“Listen, Sam… you are the smartest person I have ever met. I don’t know what kind of expectations Colonel O’Neill has, but if he doesn’t realize what an asset you are on his team, then he’s an idiot.”

“The truth is I’ve fucked up, Resa. I wanted so much to impress my new CO, to prove I deserved a spot on a team, and instead I’ve ruined everything.”

“It can’t be that bad. I don’t believe that of you. Not _you_.”

“I think maybe I wanted to earn his respect too much. I tried too hard. And instead I’ve done the opposite. God, it’s embarrassing.”

There was a commiserating silence over the phone before Teresa said gently, “I’ve never known you to get flustered.”

“I _don’t_. If being General Carter’s daughter taught me _anything_ , it was how to not bat an eye when dealing with alpha males. There’s just something about Colonel O’Neill…” Something about him that she wanted to _impress_. If only she could figure out how to do that.

“I’m sure you’ll get the chance to figure out what makes him tick.”

“I doubt that. I’m thinking it’s a good thing most of my stuff is still boxed up. It’ll make coming back to D.C. with my tail between my legs easier.”

“That won’t happen. Now that the mountain has you, they won’t want to lose you. If anything, they might assign you to a different CO. One who’s not such a prick.”

The thought was enough to put a twinge in her stomach. “I’d rather have the chance to prove myself to Colonel O’Neill. I can do this. I _know_ I can.” Sam glanced up at her wall clock – the only wall adornment she had hung thus far. “I should get going – I don’t want to be late to the colonel’s house for my reprimand.”

“You’ll be fine, Sam. Call me later and let me know how it went?”

“Okay.” She stood and started looking around for her jacket and keys… she was sure she’d laid them on top of a box somewhere.

“Hey,” Teresa threw in last-second, “is the other rumor about Colonel O’Neill true?”

“Which one?”

“That he’s handsome.”

“Ugh, _devastatingly_ ,” Sam groaned. “And it just makes him _more_ intimidating.”

“Hmmm… do you think maybe _that’s_ your problem?”

“What do you mean?”

“That you’re attracted to him.”

“I didn’t say that! I said he was attractive. Objectively, I can admit that. But I’m not stupid enough to go and get a crush on my CO. Certainly not one who doesn’t even _like_ me.”


	2. Chapter 2

The snow was coming down harder by the time Sam got to Jack O’Neill’s address. She pulled into the driveway alongside his familiar truck before an unfamiliar house and took a moment sitting behind the wheel, marshalling her nerve.

Eventually, she had to admit she would never be fully braced to be told she wasn’t a good fit for SG-1 and got out of the car.

She knocked on the front door and tried to tame her pounding heart as snow gathered in her hair and on her shoulders.

When Jack O’Neill answered, he was wearing jeans and a long-sleeve navy blue pullover, and the sight took Sam aback a second. She’d never seen him in civvies before, and she realized she had not been prepared for the sight. Of course, she should not have expected him to be wearing BDUs or a flight suit at home, but some part of her had begun to see him as an almost inhuman figure. Wearing civilian clothes was a distinctly _human_ thing to do.

She realized she was creating some outlandish notions of her CO in the privacy of her own head.

“Carter,” he greeted when she said nothing.

If Sam could have discreetly slapped herself, she would have. “Sir.”

He cocked his head at her, and Sam swallowed because she could not read the look on his face _at all_. He was an imposing presence – not because he bench-pressed three hundred pounds and ate nails for breakfast (that would be a better description of Teal’c), but there was a larger-than-life gravitas to him. There was something he projected that was far bigger than his body, and Sam felt cowed by it, despite all her bravado and best efforts.

It made her wonder how Kowalsky had done it – how he had been friends with Jack O’Neill. She wished he’d made it through the symbiote incident… for many reasons, but not the least of which so she could ask him how he’d befriended someone like Colonel O’Neill.

“So… you planning on standing out there until you turn into a snowman?” Jack asked after a tense silence.

“Uh, well, no, sir. But you haven’t invited me in yet.” And she was not about to presume. That silent, disapproving light in his eye was far more damaging than being yelled at by any other CO she’d ever had, and she did not want to trigger it.

Jack rolled his eyes. “I invited you _over_ , Captain. Did you think I was going to make you stand out in the yard?”

Before she could respond to his humor (he _was_ joking, she was fairly sure… it was so hard to tell with him, his wit was so dry), Jack stepped back to let her into his house.

Sam stepped inside, sidestepped just enough to clear the door, and brushed the accumulated snow off herself in the entryway. Jack closed the door behind her and came around to watch her with that damned mystifying look of his. It made Sam self-conscious of every move she made.

As much as she yearned to win his approval, she also kind of resented his ability to make her feel like a girl seeking validation from an authority figure. It made her feel unbearably _young_ , and she’d worked hard to shed that girl who cared about others’ opinions too much. If, by some miracle, she got to stay on the team, she hoped that immature feeling around Colonel O’Neill eventually went away.

“Let me take your coat,” Jack offered when she’d knocked the worst of the snow off.

Feeling awkward in the face of his chivalry, like she should be the one offering _him_ a hand and not the other way around, Sam shrugged out of her jacket and handed it to him.

He hung it on a hook on the hall wall and gestured for her to come further into his home. “Sorry about making you get out in this. In my defense, it wasn’t snowing when I asked you to come over.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble, sir. I just –” Sam stopped short when she caught sight of a pair of bare feet just peeking out past the hallway wall, crossed atop a coffee table in what she assumed was the living room. Unable to help herself, Sam took a couple of steps to the left and peeked around the wall to find…

“… Daniel?”

Daniel Jackson was lounging on Jack O’Neill’s couch in jeans and an oversize hockey jersey that really ran counter to everything she thought she knew about the archaeologist. He was watching television, what appeared to be a documentary on the ancient Mayans, and seemed quite comfortable in Jack O’Neill’s house.

At her voice, Daniel looked over at her and smiled. “Hey, Sam.” After that short greeting, he turned his attention back to the program on television.

A bud of hope swelled in her chest as she looked back at the colonel. “I didn’t realize this was a team meeting.” Maybe this wasn’t about her performance after all.

One of Jack’s eyebrows twitched. “It’s not. For one, there’s no way Hammond’s going to let Teal’c off base anytime soon. For another thing, Daniel won’t be part of the conversation I want to have with you.”

Sam frowned, dread and confusion warring within her. “Oh. Well, then why is he…”

“Here?” She thought she saw a flicker of amusement in Jack’s eyes, but she couldn’t be sure. “He lives here.”

That news took Sam completely by surprise. She’d had no idea. Surely she should have known if two of her teammates were _living together_. And yet she was blindsided by the revelation. “Oh…” she stammered stupidly.

“It’s temporary,” Jack explained further. “Just until he gets back on his feet.” At Sam’s continued stunned silence, he shrugged. “He was declared dead after the first Abydos mission… turns out there’s a lot of paperwork and red tape to getting declared _not_ -dead.”

That made sense in theory, but she struggled to imagine it in practice. Standoffish, brusque Jack O’Neill living with sweet, full-of-heart Daniel Jackson? How did that even happen? The two men could not be more opposite if they tried. In her short tenure on SG-1, Sam had seen as much annoyance from Jack toward Daniel as she had friendly moments.

And yet, even Daniel shared a closeness to Jack O’Neill that Sam could only dream of having. They were obviously friends, as much as the pair seemed an odd fit. Good enough friends for Jack to open his home and take Daniel in when he had nowhere else to go.

That wasn’t something an intractable man would do.

Every moment seemed determined to force Sam to reassess her image of Jack O’Neill.

“Come on,” Jack bade her to follow him toward the dining room, “Daniel said he’d let us talk without butting in.”

Right… the talk she’d been summoned for. Just like that, the full force of her dread was back.

“You want coffee?” Jack asked as he moved toward his kitchen.

“Uh, sure.”

Jack gestured toward the table in the dining room just behind her. “Go ahead and have a seat, I’ll get the coffee and then we can talk.”

Sam sat down at the table as ordered and waited uneasily for the colonel to join her. She could hear the television in the living room droning on about Mayan temples. No longer feeling the bite of the cold outdoors, Sam pushed her sleeves up to her elbows and frowned at the red marks around her wrists. Further reminder of the hassle she had caused the team just by being female.

“Here you go,” Jack said as he came back from the kitchen with two mugs in hand, one of which he placed in front of her.

“Thank you.” She wrapped her hands around the warm ceramic but didn’t drink… the last thing her nerves needed was coffee.

Jack sat down across from her and proceeded to study her.

Sam squirmed.

Jack took a sip of his coffee, set it down, then began to frown. Actually, it was more of a scowl.

Sam’s stomach dropped. “Sir… before you say anything, I just want to apologize.”

He frowned harder. “For what?”

“For whatever it is about my performance on the team so far that you’re unsatisfied with. I’ll do better.” She hated how she sounded like she was _begging_ , but god damnit, she’d dreamed her whole life of a job like the one she had now. She was not going to lose it because she’d had a streak of bad luck and utterly failed to impress her CO her first few missions through the gate.

Jack blinked. “You think I’m unhappy with your performance?”

“Aren’t you?”

Jack cocked his head slightly, pursed his lips, then he shook his head. “I think we got off on the wrong foot, Captain.”

“Sir?”

Jack gave a humorless half-smile. “I didn’t ask you here to chew you out.” His expression sobered. “I asked you to come over so I could find out if you were okay.”

Sam’s mouth hung slightly agape. Of all the things she’d imagined Jack saying to her when he requested her presence, she had not expected _that_. “You… why wouldn’t I be?”

Holding his expression maddeningly unreadable, Jack slid his hands across the table toward her wrists. Sam couldn’t help flinching away. She stopped herself in the next second, but it was too late to avoid notice. Jack’s eyes went dark, intense, and he carefully skated his fingers over the rope burn marks on her skin. Sam shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She trusted he wasn’t going to grab her, bind her, trap her, but her wrists still hurt and it made her twitchy.

“I didn’t want to ask on base in case you were putting on a brave front,” Jack said lowly. “And if that’s the case, I’m not going to rat you out. But _I_ need to know… did he touch you?”

Sam cringed. “You mean did he rape me.”

Jack looked her in the eye. “Did he?”

Sam shook her head. “No, he didn’t.” She felt a cold knot form in her stomach. “I’m sure he would have, but you guys showed up before that happened.”

Jack seemed to search her face for any hint of lies. Finally, he nodded in obvious relief. “Okay.”

Sam looked down at his hands, his fingers resting lightly against the redness of her wrists. The contrast between the two men, Turghan and Jack, was stark in the way they touched her. “He did hit me, but all things considered, it could have been worse.” She considered how nearly she had escaped a whipping and took a breath.

“You should have killed him.”

Sam looked up and was taken aback by the fire in his eyes. “What?”

“He deserved it. And if you spared him on my account, because you thought I’d be pissed, then in the future don’t let that stop you.”

“I didn’t want to kill him.”

“Why not? The guy beat his wives and tried to stone his daughter. _I_ wanted to kill him.”

Most people would say that in jest, but Sam had a feeling Jack was dead serious. “Killing people isn’t why I fought to go through the gate. I know sometimes it’s going to be unavoidable, but it’s not why I worked my ass off to be on an off-world team.” She wondered if he could understand why she _did_ want to go through gate – if he could appreciate how standing on alien worlds took her breath away. How traveling through the Stargate made her world of dry theory and mathematics explode in kaleidoscope colors.

Jack regarded her a moment, thoughtful, then he huffed and shook his head. “You scientists.” But for once it didn’t sound pejorative. He drew his hands back, and Sam mentally kicked herself that a tiny part of her missed his concern, his nearness. She blamed that part of her desperate for a connection to the man, for some bond he seemed to have with a rare, select few people but not with her.

“Colonel…” Sam began awkwardly. “Look, I know you don’t like having a woman on your team…”

“Stop.”

Sam did out of habit, ever obeying orders.

“First of all, my resistance to having you on my team was _never_ because you were a woman. I was being sincere about that.”

She eyed him dubiously. “You actually hate scientists that much?”

“An old attitude that I’ve found myself reevaluating of late.” He cast a telling look toward the living room before he turned his eyes back to her. “I objected to the idea I would have to babysit someone else while trying to carry out a mission.”

“I don’t need a _babysitter_.”

“I know you don’t. _Now_. And since Chulak, I’ve read your service file. I even read a couple of papers you wrote.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose.

“Didn’t understand a damn word of them, of course, but I gathered enough to know you can handle yourself and that you’re a genius. I’d have to be an idiot to let some other team leader snatch you up.”

Sam dared not hope he was saying what she thought he was. “You’re not kicking me off the team?”

He scoffed. “Not a chance.”

Sam let out a breath.

He reached across the table again. This time, Sam didn’t flinch, even when Jack gently wrapped his hands around the rope burns on her wrists. “But if you remain on SG-1, I can’t promise _this_ won’t happen again. I can promise I’ll do my damnedest to make sure it doesn’t, but it might be out of my control.” And that truth seemed to sit ill with him, by the look on his face.

Sam appreciated his intention and his promise. “Thank you, Colonel. I want to stay.”

His thumbs brushed against the inside of her wrists, and she chastised her heart for wanting to skip a beat. Damn his good looks.

“I had to accept the risk of _assault_ by the enemy when I joined the service,” Sam explained. “It’s an ugly truth in the military as a woman.”

Jack kept his eyes resolutely on her wrists. “Sometimes being a man doesn’t save you that indignity.”

Something in his dark look and heavily-classified service record sent a shiver up her spine. His demeanor also screamed ‘I don’t want to talk about it’.

“I won’t give up my spot on SG-1 without a fight,” she vowed. She just hoped that didn’t entail fighting Colonel O’Neill.

“In that case,” Jack said as he released her wrists, “they’d have to fight me, too, Captain.”

She stared at him, surprised.

He smirked. “It seems I have some work to do on the team-building front… I didn’t realize you thought I was that big of a pig.”

Sam blushed. “No! No, sir, I don’t think that!”

“Uh huh.” Jack’s eyes twinkled in amusement. “Don’t sweat it, Carter. You really will like me once you get to know me.”

Sam laughed at her own words being thrown back at her. She almost countered with ‘I adore you already, Colonel’. _Almost_. Maybe once she knew him a little better.

Jack smiled like he knew what she’d held back from saying anyway.

Sam felt like maybe she was seeing a peek of the man who’d fought like hell to save Skaara and Sha’re, who had refused to give up on Kowalsky when he’d been taken over by a Goa’uld, who had taken in Daniel Jackson when he had no home. The human behind the brass. And she thought maybe she had a chance of making her way into his inner circle.

The moment was interrupted when Daniel wandered into the dining room. “Hey, guys.”

“Daniel…” Jack said, his tone low and warning.

“My program’s over,” Daniel said defensively, “and I’m hungry.” Daniel came up behind Sam and put a hand on her shoulder. “Would you like to stay for dinner, Sam?”

Sam cast an uncertain look at the colonel.

Jack surrendered with an errant gesture of his hand. “The menu for tonight is lasagna, if you’re interested. Do you like Italian?”

She took it for the invitation, and olive branch, that it was. “Yes, sir.”

“Great. Then you’re on salad duty. Daniel, start cooking the meat.”

Daniel grinned, patted Sam’s shoulder, and went into the kitchen to start dinner. 

Sam cut another look at the colonel, who had an almost warm look in his eye as he looked back at her. The same fond look he turned on Daniel sometimes.

Sam could get used to being on the receiving end of it.


	3. Chapter 3

Dinner at Jack O’Neill’s house was nice… and that was a sentence Sam Carter never thought would exist in her world.

Granted, Daniel did most of the talking, but that may have been why she felt so at ease. Daniel just had a welcoming manner, and Sam genuinely liked him. They did not have the same areas of expertise, but she felt they were kindred spirits all the same.

She hoped that meant her chances of becoming one of Jack’s friends were better than she’d originally thought. Because Jack O’Neill, for all his outward bluster, truly liked Daniel Jackson.

Although admittedly, Sam had to watch Jack closely to see the depth of the friendship between the two diametrically different men.

While Daniel prattled on, Jack mostly tuned him out, nodding here and there when a response seemed to be expected but otherwise checked out. But Sam noticed that when Daniel’s _tone_ changed – if he started talking about Sha’re and sounded _sad_ – Jack’s head came up and he was suddenly _there_ for the conversation. He was kind and supportive. Then Daniel would move on to Coptic writing, and Jack would zone out again.

They both talked about the first mission to Abydos, and while Sam had read the official report on the mission, hearing it from the people who had been there and brought down Ra made her realize the strength of the bond that had formed between Jack and Daniel in battle. It was when Sam saw the honest respect Jack had for the linguist. He might roll his eyes at Daniel’s curiosity and philanthropy, but he admired Daniel’s grit and guts in a fight.

Sam hoped those were good signs for her. Because she had an irrepressible scientific curiosity and unabashed wonder about the mysteries of the universe, things that clearly annoyed Jack O’Neill, but she was also damn handy in a fight. She may be a scientist in her heart, but she was a soldier by training. If that was what won Jack O’Neill’s approval, she could _definitely_ do that.

She ended up staying a lot longer than she anticipated and was somewhat startled by the time when she finally took note of it.

“Oh!” she exclaimed when she noticed the hour, “It’s getting late; I should get going.”

“Damn,” Jack agreed. “Sorry about that, Carter. Didn’t mean to hijack your evening.”

Sam bit her tongue from saying the evening she’d had planned involved take-out and hanging out with her cat. Why end the evening with her CO feeling sorry for her sad life?

“Sit tight,” Jack said as he got up from the table. “I’ll go scrape the ice and snow off your car.”

“That’s okay, Colonel, I can manage,” she protested.

Jack gave her an almost impish smirk. “I know you can. Stay inside where it’s warm, anyway.” Then he was bundling up and heading out the front door.

Feeling awkward again, Sam looked back toward Daniel.

Who was smiling at her.

“What?” she asked.

“You squirm whenever he acts like a gentleman toward you,” Daniel observed with amusement.

Sam cursed her pale skin, because she knew she blushed. “Guess I have trouble seeing him as anything other than my CO,” Sam admitted. “And COs aren’t known for holding doors or scraping ice for their subordinates.”

Daniel chuckled. “Look, I know Jack can come across as kind of… let’s say ‘rough around the edges’.”

Sam snorted.

“But he really is a good man.”

“I’ve never questioned that,” Sam hastened to say. “His service record speaks for itself.”

“I’m not talking about Colonel O’Neill – who, if you ask me, could be a little more patient and understanding. I mean Jack.”

Sam didn’t really feel like she was in a position to comment on the colonel in any capacity except professionally.

Daniel cocked his head. “You just seem kind of nervous around him, that’s all.”

“Do I?” Sam asked nervously, trying to laugh it off.

“Little bit. But I get it. I know how Jack is.”

Sam studied Daniel a moment. “You two seem pretty close.”

“Yes and no. Make no mistake, sometimes he doesn’t like me.” Daniel shook his head. “Well, maybe that’s not really fair. Let’s just say that we don’t always get along.” Even still, Daniel seemed at ease around the man. Like even when they didn’t get along, there was still implicit trust there.

It seemed like Daniel had gotten there effortlessly, while Sam was floundering trying to find her way in.

Daniel stared down into his empty coffee cup then returned his eyes to her. “Just stick with him. He’ll warm up to you eventually.” 

She hoped he was right.

“And consider yourself lucky, because despite how bristly you think he is _now_ , he was a lot worse _before_.”

Sam didn’t have time to ask what Daniel meant by that, because the front door opened and Jack returned.

“Well, change of plans. Looks like you’re staying the night.”

“What?” Sam asked in bewilderment, feeling thrown by the very idea… as if he’d told her she was spending the night on the moon.

“The street’s completely buried in snow,” Jack explained as he shed his outer layers in the entryway. “Until the plows come through, you’re not going anywhere. Not unless you have snowshoes in your trunk.”

Sam went to the window and realized Jack was right. His street was lost under a blanket of snow and being buried further by the minute as the clouds continued to unleash their load.

“Sorry,” Jack said over her shoulder. He actually sounded like he felt bad about her being stranded at his place.

“It’s not your fault, sir,” Sam said. “I’m just sorry it means I have to impose on you.”

Jack looked down at her, his dark eyes hiding something enchanting that she dare not contemplate. “You’re not an imposition, Carter.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward Daniel. “ _This one_ is an imposition.”

“Hey!” Daniel protested.

Jack spared a glance at Daniel, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, then he hid his amusement behind a poker face and announced, “Daniel, you’re sleeping on the couch. Carter, you can take Daniel’s room tonight.”

She was worried Daniel would object to being kicked out of his room, but he looked happy to surrender his bed. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say Daniel was pleased as punch their impromptu team-building night wasn’t at an end.

She suspected it would not be the first time she would agree whole-heartedly with Daniel Jackson.

***********

They ended up in the living room, Sam and Daniel sharing the couch while Jack claimed the recliner near the television. Jack was watching a hockey game while Sam told Daniel about the battle she’d waged getting onto an off-world team.

“Wow,” Daniel marveled at the conclusion of her tale. “That’s _insane_ , Sam. Katherine Langford just picked me up off the street and offered me a job. Next thing I know, I’m on Abydos.”

“I’m trying really hard not to hate you right now,” Sam said, only half-joking. 

“If it blunts your rage at all,” he said wryly, “I was standing in the rain soaking wet with everything I owned in a suitcase when she found me.”

Actually, that made her ache for him. She hadn’t known him long, but she liked Daniel.

“I do get it, though,” Daniel continued. “I mean, not about the Stargate, but I’ve wanted to be an archaeologist since I was little. I always knew it’s what I was meant to do, never wanted to be anything else, but there were plenty of times…” Daniel’s expression darkened. “Some days, I didn’t think I’d ever get to live my dream.”

“Why not?” she asked curiously.

Daniel scoffed. “Not all of my foster parents were supportive of my career aspirations.”

“Oh,” Sam backed off immediately, feeling like a heel. “Sorry. I forgot that you…” She trailed, the words on the tip of her tongue registering in time for her to stop them.

Daniel cocked his head. “Forgot that I what?”

“That, uh… that you lost your parents.”

He looked at her curiously. “How did you know that at all?”

Sam winced. “Your file…” And Katherine, but Sam wasn’t going to throw their mutual friend under the bus.

“Right,” Daniel quipped snidely. “You gotta love the military for condensing human tragedy into a crisp bullet-point report.”

Daniel’s foul mood made Sam flounder a bit. She wouldn’t expect such a harsh opinion of the military from a man who _worked for it_.

“I lost my mom,” Sam found herself saying, surprised even as the words left her mouth, like somehow Daniel knowing that would make up for the fact she’d known about _his_ parents. “She died when I was twelve.”

The knowledge didn’t seem to be the balm she was hoping for. “Well, aren’t we just the team of tragic loss and broken hearts,” Daniel said sarcastically.

Sam hesitated and glanced toward Jack. Daniel definitely seemed to be including Jack with that statement, and she wondered what tragedy made him part of the group.

“Do you two mind?” Jack kind of growled. “I’m trying to watch the game.”

“Sorry,” Daniel conceded.

Sam felt like he wasn’t apologizing for disrupting the game. Daniel and Jack were having an entire conversation buried underneath their words that she couldn’t follow, the discourse in the silence flying right over her head.

Instead, Sam decided a change of topic was in order.

“I’m surprised you’re not more interested in the game,” Sam said to Daniel (in a quieter voice, in deference to Jack’s suddenly surly mood).

“Me?” Daniel asked, blinking in confusion. “Uh… why would I be?”

Sam looked down at the jersey Daniel was wearing. “Well, your team’s playing, aren’t they?”

Jack snorted.

“Oh, this isn’t mine,” Daniel plucked at the jersey as he crinkled his nose.

Sam frowned, confused.

“Doofus came back from Abydos with a set of robes to his name and that’s it,” Jack said with a hint of exasperation in his voice. “I let him borrow some of my stuff.”

“And you clearly like torturing me with your team wear,” Daniel countered.

It all sounded playful on the surface, but Sam felt an edge to Jack’s words, in his tone, that was anything but jovial. Judging by Daniel’s sour expression and sullen silence, the linguist knew exactly where, when, and why the mood in the room had changed.

She wondered how long it would be before she could follow the unspoken currents of the team. Because right now, it felt like she and Teal’c were just guests on a team comprised of Jack O’Neill and Daniel Jackson. And Teal’c had been asked to join the team by Jack… Sam had just been foisted upon him by the brass.

It seemed like even once she had her spot, she was still having to fight for her place.

Jack glanced over at Sam and gave her a onceover. “Speaking of clothes, I’ll scrounge up something for you to sleep in.” With that, he got up and disappeared into the depths of his house.

Sam looked over at Daniel and asked softly, “Did I say something wrong?”

Daniel just shook his head somberly.

“Daniel…”

“It’s nothing.” Daniel frowned. “Well, no, it’s not nothing, but it wasn’t anything you did.”

But it was _something_ , and apparently Sam wasn’t going to get an answer as to what that something was anytime today.

Jack came back with sweat pants and a sweat shirt that he held out to her. “Guest room is down the hall, first door on the right, if you want to go change. Although, we’ve both already seen you with your shirt off, so…”

Sam went beet red.

“Jack, don’t be an ass,” Daniel groaned.

Sam looked quickly at Daniel, surprised at the gall he had to speak like that to the colonel. Even if she agreed with him.

“What? She knows I’m just kidding, right?” Jack looked down at Sam expectantly.

Sam fidgeted in her seat.

“Carter?” Jack prodded.

Sam looked up at him, her embarrassment mixing with annoyance. “Actually, sir… I thought the whole thing was mortifying.”

“Why? Daniel told us those Vulcans…”

“Volcarions,” Daniel corrected wearily.

“… gave the women a different drink than they gave the men. Something it would have been nice to know _before_ we all started drinking.” At that last, Jack gave Daniel an accusing look.

Daniel look sheepish.

Sam gave a defeated shrug as she laid the borrowed clothes on her lap. Did he _really_ have to ask why she would be embarrassed about getting drunk and taking her shirt off on a mission, regardless of the circumstances?

“I really don’t hold it against you, Carter. I took a sip of the hooch they were giving the women, and if I’d had a glass of that stuff, _I_ would have been running around in my underwear.”

Sam couldn’t decide between groaning and laughing. So an awkward silence descended instead.

With a sigh, Jack took a seat on his coffee table, bringing him down to Sam’s level, and waited for her to give him her attention. When she met his eyes, he looked consternated – like he wanted to make amends, but an outright apology wasn’t really his style. Or he wasn’t feeling that generous. There was still a storm cloud gathered around him, the one she didn’t understand but Daniel did.

Finally, Jack asked, “I ever tell you about the SAR exercise from hell when I was in training?”

Of course he hadn’t, but she was intrigued at the idea she was about to hear a personal story from the colonel.

“Four of us were trying to find our ‘captured’ compatriots who were being held somewhere in the woods. Me being the genius I am, I decided to climb a tree to get a better vantage point. The branch I was standing on broke, I came crashing down, and somehow when I landed I drove a sliver of wood straight through my pants and into the meat of my ass.”

Sam had to cover her mouth, because she really didn’t think laughing in her CO’s face was a smart move.

His eyes were smiling (his mouth almost was, too) as he said, “So if you think losing your shirt was bad, just remember I had to drop trough in front of three guys so the instructor could pull a splinter out of my ass.”

“Oh god,” Sam said in a strangled voice, almost choking on laughter.

“Did it leave a scar?” Daniel asked cheekily.

Jack gave Daniel a look. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” Then he looked back at Sam. She got the sense that the embarrassing story was Jack’s peace offering, and that it was the best she was going to get as far as an apology went. She could take it or leave it.

Sam nodded mutely in acceptance.

“Look on the bright side,” Daniel chimed in, “You know Jack’s starting to like you when he starts giving you a hard time.”

“If that’s the measure, Daniel,” Jack drawled, “I must like you _a lot_.”

Sam kind of thought Jack did, when it was all said and done. And she hoped she’d get there one day, too… even if ‘there’ meant putting up with Jack’s brand of humor. It really seemed to come from a place of well-meant play, if she could just learn to read his irreverent tone.


	4. Chapter 4

It was dangerously easy to get comfortable with Daniel. Maybe it was that he didn’t have the trappings of the military that constrained Sam around men like Jack. Maybe it was just something inherently _Daniel_. All she knew was that her socked feet had somehow ended up pressed against his thigh as he regaled them with more tales of Abydos, the linguist and the astrophysicist camped out on the couch together, and Sam started when she realized how _relaxed_ she felt.

It seemed the moment she realized it, the sense of ease vanished (like a subatomic particle that is changed by the act of being observed), but to have felt it at all shocked Sam. She honestly couldn’t remember ever being that comfortable with anyone. Not with Jonas. Not with Teresa. Not even with her own brother.

The traitorous thought flashed through her mind that Daniel was the brother she _wished_ she’d had. She wished Mark had been more like Daniel. Maybe if he had been, she would talk to her brother more than twice a year at holidays.

The shock of the revelation chased the feeling away entirely, and presently Sam found herself kind of uncomfortable again. She lamented the loss, because for a fleeting moment she’d felt like she had a place. Somewhere she belonged, natural as breathing. She hoped – she hoped _desperately_ – it wasn’t a feeling she would search the rest of her life to find and never find again. 

She carefully pulled her feet back until they were no longer pressed against Daniel’s leg.

Daniel glanced down at her retreating feet, looked up at her a second as if to wonder why she’d withdrawn, then he carried on his story. “Anyway, Kasuf got tired of me wandering through the village looking for someone to go with me to collect pottery shards and what-have-you from the old pyramids – since, you know, I always brought back more than I alone could carry, and after about half a dozen trips to the pyramids even Sha’re…” Daniel’s throat caught and he visibly gathered himself. “So, that’s how I ended up saddling up 5th Avenue and striking out into the desert on a regular basis.”

“Okay, I have to ask,” Sam cut in. “Why did you name one of those yak-elephants 5th Avenue? You have to admit, that’s a _really_ bizarre name.”

“Oh… um…”

Jack chuckled from his armchair, drawing Sam’s eyes toward him. Whatever funk had overcome him earlier, he had slowly shaken the sour mood and was… well, not _friendly_ , per se, but as warm and welcoming as Jack O’Neill had ever been with Sam.

Watching Daniel with a devilish twinkle in his eye, Jack said, “5th Avenue was the candy bar Daniel fed that rank animal when we first went to Abydos. And yakephants are as bad as stray cats – you feed them once and they will not leave you alone. That thing was in love with Daniel.”

“They’re not called ‘yakephants’,” Daniel protested, although even he seemed to sense the futility in correcting Jack.

“Course,” Jack continued with a smirk, “I’d have forked over a 5th Avenue bar myself if only to watch the show when that thing took off and dragged Daniel a quarter-mile through the desert by his ankle.”

Sam’s eyes widened.

Daniel groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. “Did you _really_ have to tell her that part?”

“Yep, pretty sure I did.”

Sam tried to hide her amusement. “Well, at least the name makes more sense now.”

“Yeah,” Daniel shrugged. “Although if I’d known the poor thing would end up named after a candy bar, I would have picked a snazzier one… like Snickers or Hershey.”

“Zagnut,” Jack tossed in.

“Reese,” Daniel countered.

“Clark. Oh! No, wait, I got it. _Mounds_. Get it? Because it had a hump like a camel.”

Daniel rolled his eyes.

“I like Milky Way,” Sam offered up with a smirk.

“Ooooh,” Daniel cooed, “I get it. As in ‘I traveled across the Milky Way and all I found was another Milky Way’.”

“Sounds like a souvenir t-shirt,” Jack commented. “You know…”

Before Sam could hear what Jack was thinking, they were all stricken speechless when the power unexpectedly went out.

For a moment, everyone sat perfectly still waiting for their eyes to adjust to the sudden dark. Then Jack sighed and levered himself out of his chair. “Oh, for crying out loud… Daniel, did you leave your hair dryer plugged in again?”

“You know, I truly hate you,” Daniel countered. “Did you forget to pay your electric bill?”

“Ha ha,” Jack drawled sarcastically. “Sit tight, campers… I’ll go see if I can get the lights back on.”

“This happen a lot?” Sam asked when Jack had gone off in search of the breaker box. She couldn’t help wonder if this was a peek at a less-than-orderly side of her commanding officer. Was he actually the type to forget to pay a bill?

“First time since I’ve been here.” Daniel shrugged. Without the power and its background hum of noise to mask it, the howl of the wind outside sounded particularly bitter. Cold didn’t have a _sound_ , but Sam could swear she could hear the biting cold outside.

A few minutes later, Jack came wandering back into the living room with his cordless phone in his hand. “Tree came down on a power line and took out the entire block. Who knows how long it’ll take to fix. So it’s going to get cold in here, kids.” Jack looked toward Sam with a chagrined expression. “Bet you’re wishing I’d just let you dig out and risk the drive home now.”

Actually, not really, but she couldn’t _say_ that. “Well, I’m here, so there’s no point dwelling on what I could have done differently. Only thing to do is make the best of it.”

“That’s the spirit,” Jack said. Then he tapped the phone idly against his leg and looked toward his fireplace. “Daniel, there should be some firewood on the porch under a tarp that ought to be dry enough… bring some of it in so we can get a firing going.”

“I’ll help him, sir,” Sam said as she started to unfold from the couch.

“Negative, you’re a guest.”

“Why am _I_ not excused from manual labor?” Daniel asked petulantly, even as he got up to do as Jack asked.

“Because you’re not a guest, you’re an infestation.”

Daniel gave a long-suffering sigh and turned to look down at Sam. “I’ve been looking for my own place every day off we get, and _this_ is exactly why.”

Despite their taunting, Sam sensed affection beneath the jabs. She also wondered how hard Daniel was actually looking for a place of his own.

Jack turned back toward the rest of the house, and the moment he was gone Sam got up and moved to help Daniel.

Daniel gave her a hairy eyeball. “Jack’s going to be perturbed.”

“Let him,” Sam said. “I pull my own weight.”

Daniel smiled and the pair of them trudged out on to the deck to carry in armfuls of firewood.

While they were doing that, Jack was apparently bringing all the blankets and pillows in the house into the living room and dumping them on the couch. He did, in fact, give Sam a narrowed look when he saw her disobeying orders, but he let it go and approached the fireplace to shoulder Daniel aside. “Move over. I’ll not have you burning my house down packing that wrong.”

Daniel stepped back, turned to Sam, and said loudly, “He really does think I’m a complete imbecile.”

“Nah,” Sam nudged him playfully. “He does the same to me. That’s obviously just how he treats people way smarter than him.”

Jack went still then slowly… _slowly_ … turned to look at her over his shoulder. His face was damnably neutral as he slowly lifted his eyebrows as he stared at her.

Sam felt her face go bright red and dread hollowed out her gut. Shit, why had she let down her guard and thought she could joke around with him? Just when she thought he was starting to maybe like her all right, she had to stick her foot in her mouth. How many times could she completely bungle things with Jack and hope for any chance of recovery? 

“God, sir, I’m… I didn’t mean…”

Jack looked downright haughty as he said, “How he treats people smarter than _he_.”

Sam’s mouth hung open.

Daniel was chuckling.

“ _Rubes_ ,” Jack said under his breath, then he made quick work of starting a fire.

Daniel leaned in toward her. “Relax, Sam. It’s okay to have fun with us.”

Okay with Daniel, maybe, but she knew better with someone above her in rank. There was just something about Jack… she wanted more than the formal subordinate/superior relationship with him. She was kind of appalled when she realized she wanted to be his _friend_. She’d never wanted to befriend a commanding officer before… and then Jack O’Neill came into her life.

How pathetic.

Once the fire was sustaining itself without Jack babying it, he stood up and wiped his hands on his pants. “Well, that should at least keep this part of the house pretty toasty.” Then he looked behind him at the coffee table. He slid an almost conspiratorial look at Daniel. “Danny? Move the coffee table.”

The order was strange, but Daniel grinned ear to ear. He scurried to move the coffee table against the far wall while Jack disappeared once again into the hallway.

“Wait, what’s happening?” Sam asked, puzzled.

“You’ll see,” Daniel answered cryptically.

She fairly boggled when Jack came back _with a mattress_.

He maneuvered it into the living room and dropped it on the spot where the coffee table had been, right in front of the fireplace.

Daniel hurried off to the kitchen while Jack piled blankets and pillows onto the mattress. Sam watched on, baffled.

In short order, Daniel returned with an armful of items and plopped down on the side of the mattress closest to the fire, dropping his cargo in his lap.

Sam let out an inelegant guffaw before she could stop herself when she realized what Daniel had. Graham crackers, chocolate bars, and marshmallows.

They were going to make _s’mores_.

Jack fetched two perfectly-straightened coat-hanger marshmallow poles from near his fireplace and handed them to Daniel, who was already ripping into the packages.

“You guys do this often?” she asked, amused.

Daniel and Jack both looked up at her, Daniel cross-legged on the mattress and Jack standing over his shoulder. At first, Daniel blinked. Then he smiled. “Oh, come on, Sam. Tell me this isn’t awesome.” He looked damn near giddy… like a kid.

Sam glanced up at Jack.

Jack shrugged. “I will not have a s’more hater in my house, and it’s awfully cold out there, Captain. I suggest you love s’mores within the next five seconds.”

Sam didn’t really pay much attention to the idle threat Jack was spouting. She was watching them and getting a different story. She was looking at Daniel, bright as a boy on Christmas morning over something as mundane as making s’mores, and it made her think about what she knew of his childhood… and that maybe he never got to make s’mores around a campfire as a kid. Or if he did, it was before his parents died. He didn’t sound like he’d had foster parents who really cared about doing fun things to make him happy.

And the way Jack was indulging him… hell, _encouraging_ him… it looked like Jack knew. Or suspected what Sam did, at any rate. It looked like Jack liked doing something that made Daniel smile like sunshine. It was a good look on the young archaeologist. Sam could totally see what Sha’re saw in him. And it was yet another moment when her estimation of Jack O’Neill made a radical adjustment.

Strangely enough, in that instant Jack seemed like a father.

“What girl _doesn’t_ love s’mores?” Sam finally spoke.

Jack had been watching her somewhat in warning, as if discouraging her from taking this simple joy from Daniel. And when she did no such thing, he smiled. The warmest, kindest smile he’d graced her with to date.

_Holy Hannah_ …

He was an attractive man with an _absolutely disarming_ smile.

She’d have to be careful or Teresa would be right. She would end up with a crush on her CO.

But Sam wasn’t going to let that happen. She could control herself. It wasn’t like she was going to jump her CO in the locker room just because he happened to be gorgeous and actually not a total bag of dicks.

“Excellent,” Jack said with a nod. “Then have a seat and start toasting.” 

Sam welcomed the opportunity to slide out from under his heart-quickening smile.

“We only have two sticks,” Daniel pointed out mournfully when he took note of the three people in the room as Sam was squeezing onto the mattress next to Daniel.

“Then you make me a s’more,” Jack suggested and reached down to ruffle Daniel’s hair.

“Jaaack,” Daniel groused, petting his hair back into order with a scowl…

But Sam could _swear_ she saw something like fondness in Daniel’s eyes. Like yearning. Like Daniel had missed just that kind of attention for far too long, and he didn’t hate it now. Rather, he hated that he liked it.

It was the first moment when Sam saw something more than friendship between the two men. More than teammates. 

They were more like _family_.

No wonder she was having trouble finding her way into their inner circle. She wasn’t hoping to join a team. She was trying to join a family.

The magnitude of that should have frightened her off. It was far more emotionally involved than any teams she’d ever been on before. A far cry from team dynamics that were within her comfort zone. 

She’d never done attachments well… romantic or otherwise. 

She should have panicked when she saw the truth of SG-1.

Instead, she just wanted it that much more.


	5. Chapter 5

For all her outward bravado, Sam’s heart pounded as Turghan prowled closer, and Sam didn’t know tents could have corners until he’d backed her into one. Her dress was half-gone, torn from his hands clawing for the flesh beneath, and she’d hated that stupid dress, but suddenly she longed for every thread of fabric she had lost.

“You _will_ be a dutiful wife,” Turghan growled as he crowded her, the wall of his presence suffocating. She wanted to fight, but something bound her hands. She couldn’t see the restraints, but she could feel them, tight and biting around her wrists.

“ _You are mine_.”

Sam turned and tried to escape, tried to dart past her attacker, but something tangled around her feet and she went down. The furs spread on the ground seemed to engulf her, holding her down and tightening around her the more she struggled, like a hairy boa constrictor. Panic swelled up and started to drown her, and still her wrists were tied, her body swaddled in the skin of dead animals, the other victims of the monstrous chieftain.

Turghan crouched down beside her and peeled off the layers of hide about him, peeling like a snake until he was down to tan flesh. Heat seemed to radiate from him, the living embodiment of sweat, a man-sized sun whose rays sought out her naked skin. Sought it out to blister, to sear, to burn.

“Such beauty…” he hissed, a marvel and a slur, as he put an arm around her.

Unadulterated panic yanked her from sleep and Sam gasped to wakefulness in an unfamiliar place.

Her dream still haunted her, crouched at the edges of her vision. The shadows writhed with the man-snake, the fur-boa, the stink of fear and danger. It still laid heavy against her chest.

Sam’s heart made as if to jump into her throat when she realized the weight was not a phantom. There actually _was_ an arm across her.

Sam shoved the arm off and fought her way out of the tangle of blankets until she had the freedom to sit up, move away, and get her bearings.

Things began to make sense very quickly.

She was in Jack O’Neill’s house, stuck there after a winter storm buried the street and her car with it. She was sleeping on the mattress put in Jack’s living room in front of the fireplace. While no longer the crackling hearth it had been hours ago, it was still alive enough to throw off heat and light enough by which to see. Daniel was on the bed with her. They had opted to share the mattress since the living room was the only warm room in the house. 

In his sleep, Daniel had rolled over and thrown his arm across Sam, the cause for her unconscious alarm.

Sam looked toward the couch and saw the lean frame of Jack O’Neill stretched out, one arm thrown over his eyes.

Realizing her heart was still racing, that her nerves were still shaken, she heaved out a breath and raked her hands through her hair. The rope burns on her wrists stung anew, and Sam clasped one hand in the other, staring down at her souvenirs from the Mongol planet.

There was little chance she could get back to sleep anytime soon.

Being careful not to make any noise, Sam extricated herself from the plethora of blankets piled on the mattress, crept past Jack, and tip-toed into the kitchen.

She found a glass in the cupboard and poured herself some water from the kitchen sink. The drink didn’t help to calm her nerves as much as she had hoped. 

As she stood in Jack’s quiet kitchen, her feelings began to untangle enough for her to pick them apart. She discovered that she was rattled, yes, but she was also _pissed_. She hated that a would-be rapist could stain her dream. It was like he’d brought ruin to the stars, and that was unconscionable. 

It was different from the Jaffa they’d tangled with on Chulak. Different from the enemy fighters she’d gone up against in the Gulf War. There was something infinitely more manageable about an enemy if she had a gun between her and them. The only thing between the indefinable core of _her_ and Turghan had been skin.

Maybe Jack was right… maybe she should have killed him. Maybe his death would have prevented her from having nightmares that he was still after her.

An unexpected touch on her shoulder made her startle and spin around.

Jack was there, holding up his hands. “Sorry,” he whispered.

Sam gulped and struggled to beat back her weakness. She didn’t want him to see it. “What are you doing up?” she asked, hoping to hell she sounded normal.

Jack just looked at her in the near-total darkness. They could only make each other out because their eyes were adjusted to it. Sam had the random thought that their pupils must have had them looking like bushbabies.

“You were dreaming,” he finally said, and she knew he was being kind to call it that. But if he’d heard, then she’d woken him, and that meant it definitely qualified as a nightmare.

“Oh.”

Jack moved slowly around her, with too much care to be coincidence, to perch his hip on the counter and look down at her.

She felt his gaze like a touch, but strangely it didn’t feel judgmental. She didn’t feel like he was seeking her flaws and searching for her cracks. She felt like he was watching to find out if she was okay.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly as she put the glass on the counter.

Jack started to reach toward her with one hand but stopped before he could touch her. It worked to draw her eyes up to his all the same.

“Don’t be,” he said.

Sam bit her lip and looked away. She realized she was holding her breath, waiting for him to ask if she wanted to talk about it.

Long minutes and need for oxygen made her understand he wasn’t going to.

She was grateful for that.

But the silence was worse than the question she’d been dreading. “I woke up, and for a second I thought…”

“I know.”

It didn’t feel like an empty platitude. She suspected he really did know. She’d read his file. She knew in the black redactions lay his demons… plenty enough to stalk him in his dreams.

“It does get better,” he whispered.

She shook her head. “I just feel stupid. He didn’t even…”

“Doesn’t matter. It was a close call. Too close. Neither one of us can be blamed for having nightmares.”

Sam didn’t know if he was telling her _he_ had nightmares about Turghan attacking her, or if he was speaking of his own memories that tormented his sleep. She supposed it didn’t matter, really.

“It just startled me,” she rambled. “When I woke up, Daniel’s arm was on top of me…”

Jack watched her intently a moment, and Sam was overcome with the realization that Jack’s presence felt like a wall, too. Like Turghan’s had. Only where Turghan’s had felt like a wall coming down to crush her, Jack’s felt like protection. A wall she could take cover behind if she needed to.

She hadn’t taken long to look at Jack O’Neill and see some kind of hero.

The thought was embarrassing, and Sam ducked her head lest her face give something of her thoughts away.

“If we’re teammates long enough,” Jack said lowly, “sooner or later, you’ll see one of mine.”

It didn’t surprise her that he still jolted awake some nights.

“Just…” he said haltingly (the first hint of uncertainty she’d seen in him), “until I’m lucid again, don’t touch me.”

The image that warning painted of the man he was fresh from the throes of a nightmare was chilling. But she understood all too well. “I kind of slapped Daniel’s arm away. I… I thought it was _his_.”

Jack huffed and glanced toward the living room. “Well, it didn’t seem to disturb his beauty sleep, so I’d say no harm no foul.”

Sam snorted and shook her head, dropping her eyes to the floor and just agonizing over what Jack must think of her. Her performance so far, from his point of view, had to be lackluster at best. Sure, she was insanely smart, but that wasn’t _enough_.

“Colonel,” she grasped for the right words to set things to right. “I’m sorry…”

He grunted. “Do you always apologize this much?”

“No. No, actually, if anything, I don’t apologize nearly as much as I should.” Being a woman in a man’s world had taught her to be _unapologetic_. If she wasn’t, she was eaten alive.

“Huh. Well, then stop saying you’re sorry to _me_.”

“It’s just… I’m not normally this much of a _dweeb_.”

To her surprise, Jack smiled. “Oh, I don’t know. I think you might be. But I’ve come to appreciate you brainiacs. Turns out being a nerd and kicking serious ass are _not_ mutually exclusive.”

Sam gave a wan smile. “Truth is, sir… I want this.”

He cocked his head. “This?”

She gestured at him, toward Daniel, then up past the ceiling toward the sky. “I want _this_ to be my life… more than you can possibly imagine.”

“Well, congratulations. It is your life.”

Not really. Not yet. She wasn’t home on SG-1. She still felt like a guest.

“Sam…” Jack paused then, as if uncertain how he felt about using her first name. She wasn’t sure about it, either. It made her wonder if she could ever feel comfortable calling him ‘Jack’, even if only off-duty. Yet another piece of the SG-1 puzzle that would find its proper place in time. “I know I wasn’t the most welcoming guy at first, but don’t take my error in judgment and beat yourself up with it. You’ve earned your right to be on this team.”

“I know I have.” When Jack gave her a peculiar look, she smirked. “That’s just it. I _know_ I’ve worked harder than anyone else to be here. But it still feels… I don’t know. Like I could lose it before I even really have it.” She glanced over toward the living room guiltily and continued, “You and Daniel seem so… _in sync_.”

Jack scowled. “Daniel and I have been through a special brand of hell together, that’s all.”

“No, it’s not.”

Jack paused. “Okay, it’s not. But it’s nothing you can’t do, too.” He considered her a moment. “Can I let you in on a secret, Carter?”

She thought her last name sounded more natural on his tongue. Then again, she should not be thinking about his tongue. Or his mouth. Or her name as it came out of it.

“I want this, too.” At Sam’s surprised look, Jack gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I’m a simple guy. I go with my gut. And my gut says this team could be amazing.”

“I think so, too,” she breathed, privately in awe that he could sense the same fount of potential in SG-1 that she could.

“Life has finally thrown some good stuff my way, Captain, and I’m not of a mind to let any of it go. Not the Stargate program, not Daniel, not Teal’c… not you.”

Sam fought back a smile.

“I honestly don’t know how this is going to work,” Jack admitted, “but I don’t think SG-1 is going to perform to its full potential unless we’re _all_ close.” He made a rueful face. “Me-and-Daniel close.”

Sam was just thrilled he wanted to be that close to her. Friends to be sure, but also like quasi-family. She hadn’t let herself acknowledge she was lonely until there was a possible solution right in front of her. A team that would become her family.

“So, maybe stop trying so hard?” Jack suggested with a teasing smirk.

Sam huffed out a breath. “I’ll try… or rather, I _won’t_.”

“Good. Because your service record speaks for itself. Quit trying to impress me, Captain. I’m already impressed.”

Tension bled out of her from muscles she didn’t even know were wound tight. His message rang with the note of so much _right_. She _did_ feel like she’d been her own worst enemy in trying too hard to impress Jack. She needed to trust herself. She needed to trust her training, her education, her grit. They had carried her to the stars already… no reason to think they would fail her now.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Jack noted then looked sidelong at her. “Think you could get back to sleep?”

The nightmare that had driven her from her slumber seemed miles away. “Yes, sir, I think so.”

“Is sleeping next to Daniel going to be a problem? Because you can take the couch if you want.”

She didn’t even consider it. “No, sir. It’s fine. I trust Daniel.” Though sharing the mattress with Jack had never been floated as an option, she still felt like she had to add, “I trust you.”

A smile tugged at Jack’s mouth. “Back atcha.”

Sam followed Jack back into the living room on socked feet. While Jack reclaimed the couch, Sam crouched on the mattress and tried to sort out the mess of blankets so she could slide in. Her efforts roused Daniel, who sleepily squirmed and peered up at her. “S’m?”

“Shhh… go back to sleep,” Sam whispered as she laid a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.

“Mmmkay,” Daniel mumbled and turned over on his side, luckily freeing one of the blankets in the process.

Sam nestled into the blanket, still warm from Daniel’s body heat, and took one last look around at her team. Daniel comforting and steadfast and true on her right, Jack larger-than-life and safety and forbidden on her left. She felt the holes where Teal’c would fit, his wisdom and bravery and serenity.

She knew her contributions… her intellect, her enthusiasm, her determination.

Jack was right. It was going to be a hell of a team.


	6. Chapter 6

The power came back on around five in the morning, and the snow plow trucks made their way through Jack’s neighborhood about an hour after that. It was enough time for the three members of SG-1 to enjoy a pot of coffee while they put the living room back in order. 

All too soon, it seemed, Sam decided she needed to head home.

Daniel and Jack showed her to the door.

“Thanks for staying over, Sam,” Daniel said in earnest. “I had fun.”

Sam tried not to laugh and glanced at Jack. Jack just shook his head. “He acts like it was a slumber party and not that you were trapped here.”

“Oh, I don’t know, sir… s’mores, swapping stories, pajamas… felt like a slumber party to me.”

Jack’s eyes twinkled. “Well, maybe, but nobody did anyone’s hair.”

Sam gave Jack a deadpan look. “I don’t know what kind of slumber parties you went to as a kid, Colonel, but that wasn’t a common occurrence at the ones _I_ went to.”

Daniel laughed while one corner of Jack’s mouth twitched upward. The look said ‘score one for Carter’. It made her feel like she was walking on air.

“Well, I should get going. Thanks for everything, guys.”

“You bet,” Daniel chimed in. “We should do this again sometime.”

Jack sighed and theatrically rolled his eyes. The tiny uptick of his lips betrayed the truth – Jack O’Neill was not a man who would object to more team nights (maybe if not actual sleepovers).

Sam bit back a grin. “Next time we invite Teal’c.”

Jack perked up at that. “Yes! My man T. Someone for me to commiserate with while you two nerds spin off into the stratosphere about _nerd stuff_.”

Daniel cast Jack an exasperated look, then he turned his eyes to Sam. “Get used to this, Sam; it’s about as pleasant as he gets.”

But Daniel wasn’t talking about the bellyaching and the eye-rolling. He really meant the hint of fondness in the line of Jack’s mouth, the glitter of amusement in his eyes. She’d figured out that with Jack the trick was to read the clues. No wonder Daniel, who excelled at deciphering obscure languages, had figured Jack out first.

“I think I’ll manage,” Sam assured.

Jack nodded briefly in agreement. “Well, be careful on your way home. Call me to let me know you got there safe.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose incredulously.

He just stared at her.

“Really?” she finally asked.

Jack was dead serious. “Yes, really.”

That was another lesson learned – Jack didn’t joke around when it came to the safety of his people.

It was a trait she could learn to love about her new CO.

**********

The roads were bad on her way home, but nothing she couldn’t handle. There weren’t many people braving the roads with her, which helped her navigate the icy roads back to her house without incident.

When she walked into her mostly-packed home, Schrödinger was sitting imperiously on her hall tree with that patented cat look of ‘oh, you were gone?’ before he dropped to the floor and wound his way around her legs demandingly.

Sam spared a moment petting him, then made her way to the kitchen to fill the cat’s food bowl. Schrödinger purred happily as he curled up to eat, and Sam – ever the obedient officer – picked up her house phone to call Jack.

“Hello,” he answered in a way that made the word sound more like ‘yellow’.

“It’s me, sir,” Sam said with an involuntary smile. “Reporting in as ordered, made it home in one piece.”

“Good. Do you have power?” The hint being that if she was stuck in an icebox, she could always turn around and go back. She would be welcome in his home.

“Yes, sir. Snug as a bug.”

He chuckled. “All right, I’ll leave you to it, then. See you at work tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir. See you tomorrow.”

She hung up and immediately started dialing another number.

“Hello?”

“It’s just me, Teresa.”

“Sam! I thought I’d hear from you last night. I was getting worried. What happened?”

“Yeah, sorry… we had a snowstorm here and I got stuck at Colonel O’Neill’s house overnight.”

Teresa paused. “ _Really_.”

“No, it’s fine. One of my other teammates, Dr. Jackson, was there, too. So it wasn’t nearly as awkward as it could have been.” Now that she thought about it, the fact that Daniel had also been there really saved her ass. She might not have lived down spending the night at her CO’s house, no matter the circumstances, but thanks to one Daniel Jackson, the night had been chaperoned.

Sam chose not to dwell on the reason something would need to be chaperoned in the first place.

“Well, that’s good news,” Teresa breathed in relief on behalf of her friend. Another pause. “So… what happened? Were you in trouble?”

It was hard to remember how stressed she had been at the thought of facing Jack O’Neill just a day ago. “No, I wasn’t.”

“See? I told you. Didn’t I tell you that you were worrying about nothing?”

“You did,” Sam conceded easily.

“Damn right I did. You might be a brilliant astrophysicist, Samantha Carter, but you’re not the smartest in _everything_. Remember that.”

Sam chuckled. “I will.”

“So, tell me… how’d it go?”

Sam thought about her strange sleepover with Jack O’Neill and Daniel Jackson, ruminated on the unexpectedly sincere conversations she’d had with both, and finally said, “Resa?”

“Yes?”

“I think I’m going to _love_ this team.”


End file.
